Hamilton Printing Company: An owner’s lifelong commitment to printing in Portsmouth, R.I.
By John Scibelli
It’s been a long haul for Bob Hamilton, owner of Hamilton Printing Company, but he’s not complaining. He’s seen a lot in 52 years as a printer — almost all of them from the comfortable confines of Portsmouth, R.I., the northernmost of three communities on Aquidneck Island; its neighboring municipalities being Middletown and Newport, famous as long-time home for the America’s Cup races and a favorite harbor destination for sailors from all points across the compass.

Throughout those years, Hamilton Printing Company has developed a reputation as a dependable print shop serving clients that cover the island and stretch south to New York City, west to Connecticut and north to the Providence and southeastern Massachusetts areas.

Hamilton Printing grosses close to $400,000 annually. The owner and his three full-time employees serve a steady clientele of small businesses, regional agencies, and a few long distance clients who like Hamilton’s work.

The majority of the printing is one, two or multi-color work running the gamut from business identity materials, short-run soft cover books, booklets to newsletter. It is an even split between printed materials that roll off three single and two-color small format presses, and Hamilton’s 26-inch sheetfed ATF Chief press.

“We have the largest sized sheetfed press on the island,” Hamilton said. “And people who need printing done on that sheet size know that and come to us.” The Portsmouth native also works well with other printers in the region, sending out specialty work or complex printing that needs to be run on newer equipment.

How it all started
Hamilton was born and raised in Portsmouth, and he has lived his entire life there except for a three-year stint in the U.S. Army, where, ironically, he honed his craft as a printer.

As a youngster, he remembers picking potatoes at a summer job between the seventh and eighth grade, determined to save enough money to buy a typewriter. A friend of his father owned a small print shop, and instead of the typewriter, Hamilton bought a five by 8-inch, used Kelsey hand press. His father, a machinist by trade, helped Bob set up the press in the basement of the family home. Before the end of the summer of 1952, Bob’s Press was in business. Its proprietor was an ambitious eighth grade student.

Despite printing tickets, programs, letterheads, envelope and other small jobs, Hamilton couldn’t get into the print program at Newport Rogers High School. He was in a “commercial” curriculum and they wouldn’t fit print shop into his schedule. He says that probably no one who was in “print shop” ever became a printer. He couldn’t get in and became one.

He was in the Army ROTC program in high school and tried to enlist in the Navy with several of his buddies. He was rejected for poor eyesight — not a good sign for someone who wanted to be a printer.

The teenager turned to the U.S. Army, on the promise of additional schooling. The Army delivered, and the eyesight issue that kept him out of the Navy never was a problem. Hamilton went to offset press operation school at the Army’s engineering center at Fort Belvoir, Va. and ended up in Korea in the late 1950s, shortly after the end of hostilities there.

The majority of Hamilton’s Army training was to learn to print multi-color maps on single color 29-inch offset presses. The school also had courses in platemaking (regraining plates and coating them with egg albumen in those days), photography and bindery work.

“The 29-inch Harris presses we trained on were set up for operating out of trucks so they could be deployed in the field wherever they were needed,” he said. It was a mobile operations unit.

Once in Korea, Hamilton’s group who had completed the printing program together were assigned to the Seventh Division. Inexplicably, Hamilton was singled out and assigned the duty of secretary to the division quartermaster — the officer responsible for supplying the division with food, clothing and petroleum and other supplies and materials. The other 13 soldiers were sent to a printing detachment in Seoul. Looking back, Hamilton is convinced he was selected for the plum job because he could type.

While his printing buddies sweated in the heat of Seoul, spending much time on field exercises, Hamilton spent most of his time in the comfort of the division quartermaster’s office pushing papers — initially he though he would have preferred to be with his buddys until stories of their daily routine got back to him. It was the first of several light-duty military jobs he ended up at.

He returned stateside toward the end of his three-year enlistment and worked at Fort Mead in Maryland. He took Civil Service examinations in Maryland and when he returned home took a job at the Naval War College in Newport, a short ride from where he grew up.

He worked there for three years while also operating his printing business on evenings and weekends before deciding to take his printing business full-time.

Deepening his hometown roots
Hamilton was the only employee of Bob’s Press for the first years except for the “free help” from mom and dad. In addition to that first Kelsey press he bought as a youngster, he had also acquired a paper cutter, a Kluge automatic letterpress and a 1250 offset press. He and his father built a darkroom for camera work. Slowly, he began to build a client base. He had enough sales and money saved to buy a 4,800 square foot vacant one-story building in the Island Park section of his hometown in the mid 1960s.

He moved Bob’s Press and renamed the business Hamilton Printing Company. The company business card states “Serving Quality Conscious Printing Buyers since 1952.”

Eventually, Hamilton also bought a private residence right next door to the shop when that property came on the market. Both the home and the building are waterfront property separated from the coast by a 100-foot vacant lot that has been sub-divided into five house lots. To the east is the shoreline of Tiverton and Little Compton, to the west Portsmouth and Middletown and straight ahead Rhode Island Sound.

“I love it here. I have seen this water almost every day of my life,” he said. “How many printers can go out of their house and walk a few steps to their print shop?”

Hamilton gets inspiration from the unobstructed view of the Sakonnet River from the second floor deck and new four-season room on the back of his home. He realizes that may change soon.

Serving the local defense industry
Over the years, Hamilton carved a solid niche serving companies on Aquidneck Island.

“I’ve never been a believer about charging the absolute most that you can for a particular print job,” Hamilton said, in reference to his pricing structure, which he is confident has helped bring business his way through word of mouth among local merchants and business owners. His longtime use and mastery of Franklin Estimating Software has helped as well. “I’ve always believed that you charge a fair price that covers the cost of doing that job plus a little margin.”

If anything, the modest Hamilton Printing Company is an admirable example of small businesses that make up the economic backbone of the country, despite yielding the business limelight to high profile publicly owned companies, multi-national conglomerates and other Fortune 500 companies.

As a business owner, Hamilton has built a career of delivering solid dependable service to clients over the years at a fair price, and providing good paying jobs to a handful of employees.

“I’ve pretty much plodded along over the years,” he explained. “I never had a desire to get too big. I’ve seen lots of shops with plans to go big, and many of them are not around anymore.”

Looking back, Hamilton views his purchase of the 26-inch two-color ATF Chief sheetfed press as a major event for him. He bought it in the 1980s from a Heidelberg sales representative who had taken the press on trade during the sale of a new press to another printer.

“The 26-inch Chief has performed a lot of work here,” Hamilton said. He picked up other small presses along the way, a one-color and two-color Chief, and a two-color Ryobi, which produce most of the work.

Many of Hamilton’s clients are connected to the defense industry, even today, despite the northeast’s gradual transition that reduced its economic dependence upon the defense industry during the last 20 years.

“Many businesses here still rely on defense work,” Hamilton said. “The Naval Underwater Weapons Center is in Newport. Raytheon Company’s Submarine Signal Division is here, and there are numerous small businesses that rely on subcontract work to the more, well known companies. They all need printing and we serve a good portion of them.”

One of his proudest pieces is “Historical Tracts of the Town of Portsmouth.” It is a single-color, perfect-bound, small format book with numerous photographs text and local humor related to the town’s history. (The Portsmouth Compact of 1638 was the first authentic guarantee of civil and religious liberty in the world. Some residents, Hamilton included, consider Portsmouth as the birthplace of American Democracy. Hamilton and retired police chief and local historian, John Pierce, collaborated on the project. The chief wrote the manuscript while Hamilton did the design, typesetting and printing. Together they have sold 2000 copies and plan another run shortly.

Despite being on the north side of 50 years’ experience in the business, Hamilton knows an asset when he sees one. Not prepared to invest heavily into a custom designed Web site, Hamilton found a business that offers printers a very comprehensive web hosting service at a very attractive price. The company Web site is www.hamprint.com.

The vendor also maintains a Hamilton client list and distributes a bi-weekly e-mail newsletter that is branded in the name of Hamilton Printing. The vendor handles all the content, which is a mix of helpful tips, light humor and makes it easy to reach the Portsmouth printing company. The vendor also facilitates printing quotes and file transfers.

“It’s a great deal for us,” Hamilton said. “It is a modest monthly fee and it has helped bring clients to us. We’ve used the service for a couple of years. I could be doing so much more with the service. I’m really happy with it.”

Limited staffing
Eight employees. During 50 years of business, that is the most employees that have been on the payroll at one time. Of course, the employee ranks have fluctuated over the years, but for the last several years, the work force has consisted of Bob and three other employees. Two of Hamilton’s three workers have been there for many years. Bill Roberts, who handles bindery, shipping and occasional letterpress work, has been at Hamilton for 33 years. Pressman Bobby Singleton has 24 years at the shop. The greatest change occurs in prepress. The current prepress technician, Jennifer Sampson, joined the company over the summer.

Hamilton says that in his early years he had much luck in finding employees from Portsmouth High School. His premise was to let the school know what type employee he was looking for and send one down for an interview. “I always believed that the school worked with these students all day long and knew the student’s strength and weaknesses. They were in a better position to select a student to fill our need than to have me interview four or five and make a questionable decision,” he said. Many times he heard other printers say they could never get good help from the schools. Hamilton’s system seems to have worked very well.

His greatest anxiety as a business owner is health benefits for his employees. He pays 90 percent of the total costs of medical and dental benefits for his employees. “If it wasn’t for health plans, this would be a more profitable business,” he said.

While the four employees have all the basics covered, Hamilton says he has never had a sales representative on staff. He’s handled all sales and has relied on his network of contacts and interacts directly with nearly all of his customers.

Some of his business comes through networking in various groups and organizations. He is a big believer in networking through organizations. He has been a member of Printing Industries of New England for more than 25 years. He stays active in the Portsmouth Business Association, East Bay Chamber of Commerce and The Newport County Chamber of Commerce. He joined the Providence Craftsman’s Club soon after he re-started Bob’s Press in 1952 culminating in a three-year term as first district governor of the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen. Several certificates from the Providence Club’s Gallery of Superb Printing hang in a meeting room acknowledging Hamilton Printing’s quality work including one for Best of Show.

“I’ve always believed in the strength of a collective voice,” he said. Hamilton has also been a 10-year member of the Portsmouth Economic Development Committee and chairman for the past two years.

Hamilton will be the first to admit that he hasn’t gotten rich in the business, although he is virtually debt-free.

The future of Hamilton Printing
At the age of 67, with the building and all his equipment paid off, Hamilton said he could sell at anytime. If and when he does, he’ll want commitments that his employees and his clients will be well cared for.

At my age, I’m not interested in holding a half-million note on a new press or another new piece of equipment. I want to travel. I want to pursue my hobbies,” one of which is square dancing with a close lady friend. Like many printers, Hamilton estimates he’s never taken more than two to three weeks vacation in any one year — and there were many years where he took little or no time off.

“I’m probably not going to wait too long to start enjoying my twilight years,” he said. “When I do, I will always to be able to look back at working with satisfied customers, and remembering the many business associates and fellow tradesmen who have become close friends, but especially I will always have love in my heart and fond memories for some wonderful, dedicated employees.”

About the author: John Scibelli is editor of New England Printer & Publisher magazine and director of communications for Printing Industries of New England. He can be reached at 508-804-4113 or by e-mail at jscibelli04@pine.org.